were very far from her eyes. At the end of about an hour she got up,
bathed her face and hands in cold water, drank a cup of tea, and put
some coals on a fire in the grate. She then pulled out her watch. Yes;
she gave a sigh of relief--it was not yet ten o'clock, she had the best
part of twelve hours before her in which to prepare to meet her father
at breakfast. In these hours she must think, she must resolve, she must
prepare herself for action. She sat down opposite the little cheerful
fire which, warm though the night was, was grateful to her in her
chilled state of mind and body. Looking into its light she allowed
thought to have full dominion over her. Hitherto, from the moment she
had read those words in her grandfather's will until this present
moment, she had kept thought back. In the numbness which immediately
followed the first shock, this was not so difficult. She had heard all
Sandy Wilson's words, but had only dimly followed out their meaning. He
wanted to meet her on the morrow. She had promised to meet him, as she
would have promised also to do anything else, however preposterous, at
that moment. Then she had felt a desire, more from the force of habit
than from any stronger motive, to go home. She had been met by Hester
Wright, and Hester had taken her to see her dying husband. She had stood
by the deathbed and looked into the dim and terrible eyes of death, and
felt as though a horrible nightmare was oppressing her, and then at last
she had got away, and at last, at last she was at home. The luxuries of
her own refined and beautiful home surrounded her. She was seated in the
room where she had slept as a baby, as a child, as a girl; and now, now
she must wake from this semi-dream, she must rouse herself, she must
think it out. Hinton was right in saying that in a time of great trouble
a very noble part of Charlotte would awake; that in deep waters such a
nature as hers would rise, not sink. It was awakening now, and putting
forth its young wings, though its birth-throes were causing agony. "I
_will_ look the facts boldly in the face," she said once aloud, "even my
own heart shall not accuse me of cowardice." There were three facts
confronting this young woman, and one seemed nearly as terrible as the
other. First, her father was guilty. During almost all the years of her
life he had been not an honorable, but a base man; he had, to enrich
himself, robbed the widow and the fatherless; he had grown wealthy